The intense work by companies and brands to deliver stellar digital experiences (DXes) has been exciting to witness. This isn’t just incremental change for most organizations; it’s transformational. (Think: Outside In, a new book by two Forrester colleagues.)

But these things don’t just happen. It’s not magic. It takes significant planning and commitment across silos: Execs establish a mandate. Digital strategists and marketing pros set direction. User experience and design pros translate the vision. The same goes for marketers and content strategists.

Application developers, meanwhile, must choose and implement the right tools and technology to support DX initiatives. It isn’t easy figuring out what to prioritize (hello, internal politics), where to source solutions (suite vs. best-of-breed?), and how to roll out new capabilities to eager users.

In my research focus area, web content management (WCM), solution vendors have tried to fill the gaps and deliver DX features by building on their own platform or partnering with third-party providers.

Where are organizations investing to support digital customer experiences? Forrester asked 170 WCM leaders earlier this year and their answers, charted below, provide a snapshot of their current status and foreshadow near-term DX investments.

Mobile delivery, video streaming, email tools, and content targeting are high on the list of capabilities or near-term focus to serve digital experience requirements, according to respondents.

Executives don't decide how customer-centric their companies are—their customers are the ultimate arbiters. Digital disruptors—a term coined by Forrester describing companies that leverage digital platforms to take advantage of customers' heightened expectations and deliver a more compelling product and service experience at a lower cost—are threatening traditional business models. I will be exploring this challenge and discussing how to establish the right digital agenda on October 18-19 at the upcoming Forrester conference Developing Digital Disruption: A Forum For Application Development & Delivery Professionals.

Our research shows that a good experience impacts customers' behavior in three ways: 1) they are more willing to consider another purchase; 2) they are less likely to switch their business to a competitor; and 3) they are more likely to make a favorable recommendation. But how does that affect a company's bottom line? We estimate that the revenue impact from a 10-percentage-point improvement in a larger service company's performance, as measured by Forrester's Customer Experience Index score, could exceed $1 billion.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) leads all of North America.RBC again took the top spot in the 2012 Canadian Bank Digital Sales Rankings, scoring 77 out of a possible 100. It continues to tweak and improve an already good design; the bank started a major redesign in 2009. RBC continues to excel in areas big and small: For example, the firm presents fulfillment options in an easy-to-read format (see screenshot below). In 2012, Royal Bank of Canada improved its navigation, content, and online application functionality, and its score for 2012 reflects that improvement.

Citi and Wells Fargo top the US banks.Citi and Wells Fargo topped Forrester’s 2012 US Bank Digital Sales Rankings by delivering on multiple levels. Both banks combine good usability with exceptional account-opening processes. For example, Wells Fargo uses presentation best practices to make its checking account fees clear to customers and prospects (see screenshot below).

Last year Netflix attempted to shift its business strategy to focus mainly on streaming video. Although I wasn’t present in the boardroom discussions, it’s a reasonable bet that Reed Hastings and his team had decided the future was online streaming and that physical discs were a dinosaur. Since the war for content would be fought over streaming, Netflix would focus on adding value to its streaming customers and spin off the disc customers. On the surface this seemed to many a reasonable strategy, especially since Netflix reported that its digital streaming customers and the disc-in-the-mail customers were mostly not one and the same. So Netflix execs crunched the numbers and decided this was the right move for them. Perhaps they had hoped to spin off the disc side of the business to raise some capital. Whatever their thinking, their strategy choices left some gaping unanswered questions for observers like me: